Chichester 10 km inc. AAA Championship

Belles upgraded to GOLD in AAA 10k

With our men's team collapsing around our ears as the race neared, any hopes of medals for a fifth successive year seemed to slip away - Hassan Raidi pulled out with a bad back and Al Stewart was ruled out by the onset of a cold. But we still had three men, even though Stephen Sharp's journey down to Chichester was marred by a puncture and a slight calf muscle problem was bothering Richard Ward, who tried himself out the day before with a nippy 5k in Bushy Park. Aucklander Karl O'Connell made up the bare minimum required for a team. We had four women in the race but with two of them having run in the previous day's cross country league medals here were not even thought of.

But if we had problems then so did others. Highgate were without Ben Noad, the Beagles lost a couple - including the previous week's SEAA Cross winner Dave Mitchinson who was racing on the continent, Team Southampton were down to two men - and so it went on.

It was a classy race, nevertheless, with the real eye-opener being Kent AC's Jermain Mays, stepping up in distance to claim third place. Team of the moment Wells City had obviously romped it and Altrincham had the Norman brothers right near the front (but were missing Jason Ward racing at Dewsbury). Amazingly, when the times were added up, we realised that we had maintained our five year streak of medalling in this event.

What a debut for Karl O'Connell - closing in our team in his first race for the Bels. and picking up a AAA gong.

Birhan Dagne found herself in trouble, suffering from the return of a knee problem, but with it being a one lap course there was no point in pulling out. She slowed but kept going forward, completing the race two minutes slower than in 2005. What a good job she did, for with 'Jules' Clark and Tilly Heaton finishing not too far behind, the team were amazed to find that they had snaffled silver medals - and were a mere seven seconds behind the winners, Arena 80. But there was more drama to come as two days later it became clear that the results showed an ineligible runner among Arena 80's squad and the Belles were upgraded to GOLD!

Men. 1 P Riley (Leigh) 29:02; 2 K Cullen (Highgate) 29:24; 3 J Mayes (Kent) 29:40; 11 S Sharp 30:09; 29 R Ward 31:51; 40, K O'Connell 33:27; 840 finished.

Teams: 1 Wells City 1:31:14; 2 Belgrave 1:35:27; 3 Newham &EB 1:36:34.

Women. 1 H Yelling 32:31; 2 N Harvey (South L) 33:53; 3 J Wright (Shaftesbury B) 33:57; 10 B Dagne 35:47; 19 J Clark 2nd-W40 37:57; 31 M Heaton 38:58; 88 C Eastham 44:49; 534 finished.

Teams: 1 Belgrave 1:52:42; 2 Brighton &H 2:03:18.

Restored from the club's earlier website, belgraveharriers.com, and published here as originally written.